Sunday 10/18/2009Yadavaran: A Treasure in Land of Black GoldThree reservoirs of Yadavaran oil field are estimated to contain 12 billion barrels of oil in place, based on an initial study on the Irans southwestern oilfield.

Sarvak, Gadvan and Fahlian reservoirs have about 12 billion barrels of estimated oil in place reserves, according to a report published by Petroluem Engineering and Development Company (PEDEC), a subsidiary of National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).

Development project for Yadavaran oil field will be completed in three phases. The contract for Phase 1 of development was awarded by Chinese oil company Sinopec.

Phase 1 will include drilling of 45 production wells in Sarvak and Fahlian formations, three appraisal wells, and three water injector wells. It is expected that the production capacity of oil field would be increased to 85,000 bpd in Phase 1.

Phase 2 also aims to increase the production capacity by 95,000 bpd to 180,000 bpd.

For an ehanced oil recovery from this oil field, flooding methods will be used in Sarvak and Fahlian reservoirs.

The physical progress of Phase 1 engineering studies is currently 35.7 percent, said project manager Eng. Mohammad Reza Naderi, adding that hazard and operability studies (HAZOP) for terrestrial facilities have been carried out.

Nader stressed that early recovery from Yadavaran Oil, Iran's joint oil field with Iraq, has high priority, as well as the oilfield development project. "We have successfully agreed with the contractor [for early recovery project] to follow early production from this oil field, obtaining the implementation approval from NIOC."

"The project contractor proposed a period of 25 months for launching early production," he said, "However, the NIOC's Board of Directors decided to launch it within 16 months."

Early recovery from Yadavaran aims to produce 20,000 bpd of crude oil, which, according to Naderi, is attainable with the maintanance and completion of three exploration wells.

The crude oil will be transported with a 50-kilometer pipeline to Darkhovin processing facilities, and then mixed with crude oil from Darkhovil oil field.

Once the Phase 1 facilities are launched, the transportation of Yadavaran crude oil to Darkhovin will be discontinued, as the crude oil will be processed in Yadavaran processing facilities, and will be transported through NIOC pipelines for export.

Currently, about 350 Iranian workeres are working directly in engineering and contracting sections of the project, which will rise graduallay as the project develops, Naderi stated.

"A positive point of the contract is transfer of world's cutting edge technology to Iran", he said, adding that "about 129 employees of PEDEC, Arvandan Oil & Gas Co. and NIOC will take part in specialized courses."